Meet the Night Blooming Cereus. It's actually a new one that Shawn brought home from the flower farm. Yes another plant but this one had flower buds, so he had to take it. We have a huge Night Blooming Cereus that came from a piece, like a 3 inch piece, that my friend Rene gave me 9 years ago. It took a long time for it do anything but once we finally put it outside last year or maybe the year before it began to thrive and grow. But, it had never bloomed.
I didn't even think about the "blooming" part until one day I went online and looked it up. Damn if it doesn't bloom and HUGE flowers at that. Since then we have been wanting ours to bloom so badly. But it hasn't. So when the chance came to get one that is about to bloom, we had to take it.
I'm going out of town today until Sunday. As luck would have it, I'm sure this is going to bloom tonight or tomorrow night. Hopefully the flower will hang out longer than a few hours, unlike the Moonflowers, Jasmine and Morning Glories.
I will also be in a non-internet area ... oh yeah, time to disconnect. There will be catch up posts of some fun stuff on Sunday.
Busted Miss Poo eating Tiki's leftover cooked chix livers and thighs. She had previously been snubbing it. I've been doing a bit of research on cat food recently. Apparently, cats just like people, can develop food allergies especially to dry food. The canned stuff appears to be filled with unpronouncable crap. So I decided to try cooking some chix livers and thighs for them. But of course Lucy didn't want to eat it. But tonight I caught her finishing up Tiki's leftovers. Maybe there is hope in getting her to do what I want:)
Our beautiful Morning Glories on our fence were slaughtered today. Just look at these photos. When I left for work this morning, I took notice of them, all vibrant, full, crawling up the fence, tons of buds on them. I thought, wow, in a few weeks there's just going to be hundreds of purple flowers in the morning. Sadly, that wasn't what the universe intended. I'm sorry, but I'm shaking my fist at the universe right now.
The lawn company that does our community came through and massacred them today. We've been nurturing and watching these Morning Glories grow since late May, early June. They've been inching and crawling up the fence for over 3 months. Shawn was making sure to protect them from the barbarians (Heritage Landscaping) when they were tiny, little sprouts. He even protected them when he power washed the fence. All the while they've been thriving.
The Morning Glories on the fence were special because the ones on the deck are afflicted with a fungus. We've been trying to work with them, cutting out infected leaves, spraying with fungicide and homemade remedies but we were always saying, look at the ones on the fence, they're magnificent and they will have hundreds of blooms.
Needless to say we're just stunned and devastated. The plants, the gardens, the flowers are all part of our home and our existence and watching them grow, blossom and flower is something that keeps us present nearly every day in the spring, summer and fall. We are always out in the yard and garden checking things out, watching them grow, anticipating them reaching their full potential. I mean more than half of the posts on this blog have been about the plants and gardens and their lives.
We have no idea why the lawn company would be so completely unaware. And it's not like they just breezed by with the weed whacker. The person controlling that weed whacker got in and made sure they were chopped up. There's even long sprouts of grass in the same area that they missed along with a HUGE clover patch that is like 3 inches tall. We're wondering if the hoa nazis had something to do with this.
In the big scheme of things, this is by far, not the worst thing that could have happened today. But it's the thing that made me snap and just go on a rant about other things that I was intentionally and purposefully not allowing to irritate me. I spent 4 hours ranting about a bunch of shit and I definitely feel lighter now. And, the roots of those Morning Glories and how could I forget, the Clematis!!! are all still alive and well. They'll come back. Maybe not to the same place they would have been but I know there will be at least one flower. And the barbarians missed one. There is still ONE alive ... this one.
And I suppose there has to be one final irritation ... wtf is up with this stupid ass formatting and code?
These are the morning glories just before they bloom. This was just before dawn, like minutes. By dawn, they are open. Within a few hours they are done. There are subtle differences between the just about to bloom vs the spent morning glory. The just about to bloom morning glory is more sharp and structured. The spent morning glory is less, structured more loose and floppy. If you really want to be present, you can spend a moment and watch the morning glory unfurl before your eyes.
Yesterday was Crue Fest. A bunch of bands with the headliners being Godsmack and Motley Crue. I used to love Motley Crue, back in the day, but somewhere along the line grunge and hard rock with deeper voices and less squeal became way more appealing to me. So with Godsmack on this bill Shawn and I knew we had to go. It was actually the fifth time I've seen Godsmack. I guess that would make me a serious fan. Plus we had caught some MC shows on VH1 recently and their stuff does still rock.
I decided that this day needed to be documented. So we started with some self timer pics before we left. Poseurs! The definition of poseur, another term for poser, is a person who acts in an affected manner in order to impress others. We were certainly acting in an affected manner! But the only people we were impressing were ourselves! All rocking out in our living room.
I continued to get pics of the day with my camera phone which I've hardly ever used. Too bad I couldn't take even the little point and shoot but the camera phone added its own style to the whole thing.
Turns out Mother Nature had plans for yesterday as well. Lots of rain. But that never spoiled the moment or the day. At first it was sucking a little energy out of the excitement but when I decided I was just going to get wet and not give a fuck, the rain simply added to the whole ambience of the show. Plus it made for great, wet, rock hair:)
As a yoga teacher and student, sometimes I feel like everything I do should somehow reflect the yoga teachings. Sometimes rock music and/or lyrics don't necessarily go along with yoga teachings. However, if you stop and take a moment to pay attention you can find the yoga teachings in rock. I also follow the way of Buddha ... moderation in all things. If all I ever listened to was mantra, I would be missing out on the energy from all other kinds of music. And vice versa. If all I ever listened to was rock, I would be missing out on some very powerful music and sound.
At the show yesterday I was finding a lot of yoga. The energy was really good. People had come together for a common purpose. The sound was elevating and energizing. There was "kirtan," or call and response from the bands to the crowd. There was singing along. At a different show with Shinedown this year, they tell the crowd to look to your left and right, make eye contact with your neighbor, say hi, shake hands, connect. We do that in yoga. Yoga=union.
If there was one thing I could add to rock, it would be some rocking, hard and heavy songs with uplifting lyrics. Not all angst ridden or mad at the world or my life sucks kind of lyrics. But just lyrics about yeah, life is fucking good. And I'm rocking out.
So tonight's dinner prep was the idea for the photo post. My original intention was to just shoot the getting ready, stuff sitting out, waiting for me to cook. But then I cut the limes.
These limes were the juiciest limes I've seen in FOREVER. Half a lime was more than a tablespoon. So I took this as a sign to document the whole process of the edamame salsa. Oh yeah, the edamame salsa is the shit. So far we've got the limes, olive oil and garlic.
Next come the tomatos.
Some salt and pepper. Then the cilantro, corn and edamame.
That contraption is the thingee that pulls the corn off the cob. Since the first time I made this edamame salsa, which calls for fresh corn, I use fresh corn for everything that calls for corn. Can't do the canned. That's haulocost food to me now. So, it basically shaves the corn kernels off the cob into the domed piece. This saves the kitchen from corn kernels flying everywhere when I hack them off the cob. I've been known to make a bit of a mess when I cook. Pieces of food flying everywhere when I'm chopping, slopping stuff around. It happens, what can I say. But this corn contraption has been great. Hubby got that for me:)
Here's everything all stirred up.
And the final product atop grilled flank steak. We determined that this was THE BEST ever batch of edamame salsa.
A Morning Glory vine making its way up.
Lucy has always been a cave kitty. She likes to get under the chairs and bed, under covers, in nooks and crannies. When we first brought her home, she would hang out by the chaise lounge, under the throw hanging off the arm of the chaise. It was her bat cave. We would call it the bat cave. She had a little bat face with pointy ears so the cave was dubbed appropriately.
Here she is under a chair. I had the camera sitting on the floor to get this angle. This isn't a worm's eye view and it's not a bird's eye view. So what view is it? I thought there was a name for this straight on, kind of shot but Google didn't come through for me.
Flower in front of the cupcakes.
I love me some cupcakes. We went to a friend's birthday party where they had cupcakes from Buzz Bakery. Oh my, they were yummy. And not only are the cupcakes fantastic, but their website design is awesome. Wow. And the photography. This place totally appeals to my cupcake tastes and my design sensibilities.
This morning Tiki and Lucy were playing. Grappling in fact. The last time they engaged in play together was before Tiki's vet trauma/drama, about a month ago. Once Lucy got a sniff of the vet on Tiki, any progress made to becoming play buddies was over. It was about 2 weeks before Lucy stopped hissing at Tiki. But over the last 2 weeks there has been progress.
Lucy used to play with the Mr. before he passed away. They would rough and tumble, scrap, but in a friendly way. And believe me, you know the difference between a friendly, play cat scrap and a serious real cat scrap.
Over the last few days I had noticed some chasing going on. Lucy chasing Tiki, but Tiki not only liking it (you could tell by the expression on her face) but full of vigor from it. Then this morning I was checking email and noticed some play engaging going on. Then for one instance I stopped paying attention and the next thing you know I hear all this noise, snorting, hissing and growling. I turn around and see full on grappling. Lucy was the one making all the noise, but it was in fun, once again, you can tell the difference.
I ran to grab the camera and was able to catch just a few seconds of the after math of the grappling, which was really Tiki backing Lucy into a corner and showing her who was boss. They were both having a good ole time. Old Tiki Baby still has it in her. Hopefully, this will continue and blossom into some good rough and tumble between the old girl and the punk ass.
These are the jasmine flowers that drop off after they've bloomed. Jasmine blooms at night and has the most amazing scent. Someday, I want to live somewhere, where I can have a hedge of jasmine. That means it needs to be warm enough year round for the plant to stay outside and be planted in the earth. A hedge of jasmine. I can smell it just thinking about it.
So after the jasmine blooms, the flowers drop off about 24 hours later. When I remember, I will gather them and place them in some water and bring them inside. The scent lingers with them for another day or so. The buddha altar has become the place to set the jasmine flowers. It looks like an offering sitting on the altar. And I suppose it is. An offering of the beauty we get to experience, thanks to the universe.
I don't remember the name of this flower but this flower had a hand in starting it all. In pushing me to get a digital slr camera and start taking photos. Not this flower here but this one. I took that photo with my little point and shoot. When I saw it I wondered what I could do with a good camera. So thank you awesome flowers from 2 years ago.
